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And here’s a reminder of what the dome used to look like. It’s not perfect but definitely better than the mediocrity shown in the newer pictures. Everything looked so much better pre-2019.

I swear just before the 2019 season started we were told through another one of Sickstone’s pre-season videos that the Dome’s interior was going to be be completed in two “phases”; presumably the first part ripping out the old Atlantis theming early last year, and for 2020 by modernising the interior? Yeeeeaaaahhhhh, something tells me that idea might have been scrapped. So we are now permanently left with a poor man’s version of the Alton Towers Dungeon - black walls galore.

Pleasure Beach have extended their season and will now close on the 13th December (weekends only Nov-Dec) and have also extended season passes free of charge. They are also offering the option to defer 2020 season passes to 2021 or receive a (not yet announced) discount from next year's passes. The promenade illuminations are also being extended until 3rd January. All in all, an excellent response to a difficult situation in my eyes.

Left without further comment...

As long as someone is happy to never be critical about such a product (and presumably likes to SHOUT a lot as seems to be the trend on YouTube) then of course a company will use them for free PR. I just won't ever listen to their opinion.

Did you know that Thorpe Park Mania used to be Thorpe Parks free PR machine.

Coaster groups are very white male dominated. Especially the forums. Only about 1 or 2 forums actually have a half decent female presence, but that is down to a fair amount of work on the members part to become an established part of the community and then part of the site's team. A lot of the time the females at meets have been dragged into it by boyfriends or family members. Very rare to see girlfriends dragging their other halves along (does happen though). BAME is even lower in numbers. I might not even need additional hands to count how many I've seen or met on meets over the 17 (Jesus I've been in this game a while). At the end though you cannot flat out force people to join a forum on what is an incredibly niche interest. People like theme parks as a general visit thing but do they LIKE them? It's an incredibly difficult situation for many industries. Engineering has a very similar issue in terms of a lack of numbers in diversity as it was always seen as a bloke's thing to do (current company has 1 female in the engineering side, the rest are admin or finance). And with a lot of management at the companies being an old boy's club made it hard for any women involved to advance unless you had the right people in charge (this isn't a point at the running of this forum). But you've got to build the interest in it first before demanding that there be diversity, as you are then potentially promoting people to senior roles who aren't always best suited for them as a tick boxing exercise. If there's one thing I have noticed about the coaster community; it's the very prominent number of LGBTQ+ members. Which is a fantastic positive to consider.

You didn't just make that point though, did you? By the way you worded it and where you posted it you attacked the team of the forum. This is a hugely inflammatory and frankly unfair way to approach the subject. I can't believe you are stupid enough not to know exactly what you were doing. There are lots of relevant conversations to be had about diversity in this forum, in the wider community, possibly in the industry itself. I have no idea what the demographics of each are. That conversation is absolutely encouraged but barbed comment in a thread called rant is not a sensible way to go about that. As has been mentioned, the team can only be recruited from the user base and the user base is what it is, it is not targeted to anyone in particular with the sex and race of users not known. Your is likely to be detrimental to the cause you purport to support. If the only way the diversity of the forum, and by extension the team, can widen is by organic member sign up do you think insinuating there is a racism and sexism issue here is going to help that? Would someone coming to the forum and seeing your comments think this would be the place for them?

Makes post heavily implying that there is some casual sexism and racism at play in the running of this site. Blames the responder for pulling the race card. Genius. I can't speak for the admin, but this is a small site which is basically used by those who find it, and in turn modded by those who are here. There's no marketing, there's no targeted effort to attract anyone in particular, it's just here. The mods can only be selected from those who are here and who apply, it's not like it's paid or advertised elsewhere. What just might put new people off getting involved is obnoxious hateful posts, like some the ones you make. Even if the recipient of 'banter' (or whatever you would call it) is in on it, how does it look to outsiders? Not welcoming The content is theme parks and basically devoid of race in any meaningful way; as it's largely anonymous I don't see how we could ever know the demographic that is here and you don't know who you are engaging with. I suspect that might be why @StevenVig hadn't really thought about race in that way in the community as he said? I might not be as alert to it myself, would be interested to know if there has ever been anything here that you have found offensive or discriminatory if you are happy to talk about it?

Sure it’s a healthy discussion and am happy to have it - as Pluk said all team member applications the last time we did them were anonymous to keep things as fair for everyone as possible.

Mark asks a reasonable question here though. There was no malice behind his post. As a Queer POC on this forum, I can honestly say that personally, the lack of diversity has never actually crossed my mind. I’ve never considered race or ethnicities within this community. It does get you thinking though, it has never been an issue for me, and is something that I guess I just accept. Though I can now see how this might be perceived to others though, and it is a healthy discussion to be had

Does it deeply sadden you, or would you just like some attention? You are historically one of the most insulting people in here and you've been warned about it before. The last time you were warned it was for being insulting to one of the very few people here who I know not to be white. Probably not very welcoming to actual or potential members from a more diverse background, is it? Maybe putting more thought into your actual actions would be better than these shallow words? The last time there was any significant change of the team it was promoted on the forums, applications were submitted blindly, and the existing team chose a couple of people blindly based on their application. I wouldn't know, and I'm sure the team wouldn't know, the ethnicity or sex of the applicants. I have no idea about the sex or ethnicity of the vast majority of users here, the nature of forums mean they are to a large extent pretty anonymous, especially if you want them to be.

In TPMs side of things, who are prominent members of the forums who are either BAME or female AND are suitable candidates for working on the team? If the numbers aren't there then the representation won't be. And having a situation of putting someone on the team purely as a tick box exercise isn't the point of racial or sexual equality. It's precisely the same issue with football managers. Between the ridiculous amounts of money making teams believe they would be taking a risk with younger managers; how many BAME people are going through the coaching system in order to get those roles? Not enough.